Market rumors were ignited in January, claiming that Seattle-based Getty Images, the world's leading distributor of visual content, had put itself on the market, with offers pending, mostly from private-equity firms, that could total $1.6 billion.

The New York Times first broke the story Jan. 21 with information from "people briefed on the situation" and listed Kohlberg Kravis Roberts and Bain Capital as interested parties.

Getty Images responded with a release stating that its policy is to neither confirm nor deny market rumors, but it did announce that it is "exploring strategic alternatives to enhance shareholder value." The release also stated...

Despite early fears of internet censorship by the Chinese government, professional photographers in Beijing this summer were able to capture and transmit a stunning array of images to the rest of the world during the 2008 Olympic Games.

The Associated Press wired up to 1,000 images per day from the more than 70 photographers they had assigned to cover the Games. Getty, as the official photo agency of the Games, brought more than 40 photographers to Beijing. Reuters photographers also took many photos but did no editing on-site...

Seattle photographer Phil Borges, has widened the horizons of his Bridges to Understanding program to South Africa. Founded by Borges, Bridges to Understanding is a nonprofit group that encourages children to learn about the world through photography and visual storytelling.

The Amy Biehl Foundation, located in the Khayelitsha Township, near Cape Town, South Africa, is the newest member of the Bridges to Understanding worldwide network of classrooms. As part of the month-long festivities to celebrate...

An official with The New York Press Photographers Association (NYPPA) has asked members of the media who have experienced health problems since covering the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks to contact NYPPA.

In a memo sent to all members this summer, David Handschuh, chair of NYPPA's Intergovernmental Affairs committee and photographer for The New York Daily News, said he wants to determine how many media professionals suffered health problems after the attacks. So far, he said, more than a dozen 9/11 media workers had...

The American Society of Media Photographers (ASMP) was recently awarded with funding from the Library of Congress to promote digital photo standards based on the Universal Photographic Digital Imaging Guidelines (UPDIG).

The three-year project will include the development of new educational resources that use web-based awareness campaigns for the UPDIG guidelines. The award was given, however, with the stipulation that the ASMP cannot use the funds for any ongoing operations, including the UPDIG.

As part of the Library of Congress' Preserving Creative America initiative, eight partnerships projects...

On Oct. 1, the State Photo Center (SPC) closed its doors in Washington, D.C. Overseen by Associated Press national photo editor Victor Vaughan, the SPC will no longer traffic images from freelancers and member news agencies.

The SPC lasted 10 years and was first put together as a consolidation of regional photo desks in Atlanta, Chicago and Los Angeles. The SPC offices in the nation's capital have been merged with AP's Manhattan office.

The 16 workers at SPC in Washington were given the choice of moving...

The California Assembly recently passed a bill reversing the decision made by two federal courts regarding the denial of payment to Marilyn Monroe's estate when using commercial images of the deceased actress. In both court cases, the issue surrounded Monroe's post-mortem rights to images as claimed by her estate, MM LLC.

The bill would allow for Monroe's estate to benefit from licensed images being used for commercial use. Originally, the courts had ruled that, because the statutory post-mortem publicity rights were nonexistent in...

Citing a recent decline in core business and poor second-quarter earnings, Getty Images announced the elimination of 100 jobs. This follows an earlier round of layoffs Getty ordered after it acquired MediaVast, which owns the stock agency WireImage.

Second-quarter declines for Getty were most obvious in its licensing sector, where volumes were down 11 percent in royalty-free imagery and 6 percent for rights-managed imagery, compared with the same period last year. A glitch in Getty's online footage...

The 10-year-old back-and-forth copyright infringement dispute between the National Geographic Society (NGS) and photographer Jerry Greenberg has taken yet another turn. In September, the U.S. Court of Appeals said it will reconsider its June 2007 decision to vacate a jury award in favor of Greenberg.

Greenberg originally sued NGS in 1997, claiming that the publisher used his images on a CD-ROM compilation without his permission. Her contended that the CD-ROM was not a revision of past work but a new product. NGS countered that the CD was legitimate because it was a compilation of all...

Due to the recent uproar from several photography groups, Getty Images has announced a small concession regarding its recent posting of a $49 price for stock images on their web site. Getty's executive vice president for imagery issued a statement explaining the company's decision to reduce the duration of rights-ready and rights-managed web-resolution licenses from a year down to three months.

Originally, the company introduced a pricing plan that was a breakthrough in the industry, pricing almost any online photograph from Getty at $49. The pricing plan included creative, news, sports, entertainment or archival images for online usage of a 500-kilobyte file at 72 dpi. The Image Source and Arnold Newman collections were...